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Searching for dark matter in South Dakota

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Richard Gaitskell:Physics professor at Brown University and the lead researcher on the LUX project

Former gold mine town Lead, S.D. is now a town that hosts a different kind of exploration: dark matter.

Brown University physics professor Rick Gaitskell has built a sensitive dark matter detector in an abandoned mine 5,000 feet below ground. After four years of work, he and a team of scientists recently joined politicians and other officials to mark the opening of the new detector. Two and a half months later, we wanted to check in with Gaitskell about the hunt.

How does the detector work, and what would a potential dark matter discovery mean for our understanding of science?